Life's a Beach Then You Die Read online

  Chapter Three

  When I got home, I saw it right away, but it didn’t register. I knew something was odd about the front door, but I didn’t know what. Then, shock gave way to recognition. Someone moved the welcome mat and next to the lock, there was splintered wood where the doorframe had been. I didn’t need to be a detective to realize someone had broken in.

  I also didn’t need to walk in on someone who might still be there. Since I don’t carry my phone when I run, I went across the street to use my neighbor Karl’s. I could watch my house from there while I waited for the police.

  I rang his bell and stared at his lime green door while I waited. Folks on the island seemed to have a thing for tropical colors. After what felt like a long time but was probably less than a minute, Karl came to the door. He opened it just enough to see who was there, then opened it fully. “Hey Max, you’re pretty sweaty, huh? What’s going on?”

  Karl’s a lean but muscular retiree with a shaved head and an unshaved goatee. He’s about six foot, three, 170 pounds and in his early sixties, but he looks a lot younger. Karl lives alone and seems to spend all of his time on the beach. I see him more on the sand than I do on the street. When I thought about it, I was surprised he was home.

  “I just got back from running and it looks like somebody broke into my house. Can I use your phone to call the police?”

  “Sure. You’re not kidding, are you? Wow, c’mon in man.” I followed him into his kitchen where he pointed to the phone. Then he went to the window to look across the street. I had never been inside his house before and was surprised. For a bachelor, his kitchen was surprisingly clean. Actually, it was clean for anyone. Either he was fastidious or he never used it.

  I picked up the phone and dialed 911. A woman answered. She sounded calm and professional. Her voice was reassuring and I answered her questions.

  “OK sir, I’m sending officers over to investigate. In the meantime, stay where you are and don’t go back into the house. Now, give me the address where the break-in occurred.”

  I gave her the address, hung up and joined Karl at the window facing the street. We could see the entire front of my house and I watched intently. I wanted to make sure Mariel didn’t come home and walk in on anything. Karl and I stared out the window together in silence.

  While we waited, I worried. I worried Mariel had come home and was there when the break-in occurred. When I realized our driveway was empty, I worried she had put her car in the garage. Then, I remembered she never put her car inside until the evening. She liked me to guide her in so she wouldn’t hit the lawnmower or my bike.

  I was also bothered by the possibility the people who broke in had vandalized our home. We had just spent six months and thousands of dollars remodeling the house when we bought it in July. We painted the interior, installed new floors, and purchased new furniture including the big TV and the audio system. These were luxuries, but we saved for years when we both worked so we could buy them when we retired. We didn’t expect to have that kind of income again. I was only gone an hour. It didn’t seem long enough for something so significant to have taken place.

  Two city police units, one marked and one unmarked, silently pulled up in front of the house. Each vehicle contained one man.

  The taller of the two men was in uniform and he drove a white sedan lettered “New Smyrna Beach Police”. About six and half feet tall, slim and gangly like basketball player, he appeared to be in his early 30s and had longish blonde hair.

  The other officer was in plain clothes and drove an unmarked, black SUV. He was a slightly older, shorter, darker man with short, thick, curly, black hair. Just less than six feet tall, he had chest and stomach muscles that pushed against the front of his tight short-sleeved white golf shirt. His muscular upper arms filled the shirtsleeves. He wore khaki slacks, thick-soled black shoes and a matching black belt that carried his gun and badge. I wondered if he had his clothes tailored to show off the time he spent in the gym.

  Karl and I went outside to meet them. “Hi, I’m Max Fried. I live across the street. When I came home, it looked like someone broke in. I figured it would be better to call you than to go in and surprise anyone who might still be there.”

  The taller of the two officers gestured for us to get out of the street and onto the curb behind a parked car. He looked at me, then Karl and asked him, “Who are you?”

  “I’m a neighbor. I live across the street,” said Karl as he pointed back at his house.

  The cop looked from Karl to me and pointed to the ground at our feet behind the parked car, “Get down and wait here.” Then both officers headed up my driveway to my house. They had their hands on the grips of their holstered guns and moved in a slight crouch.

  One went around to the back of the house while the other headed for the front door. After a few minutes, they both came out of the house alone. The uniformed cop got into his car and drove off. The other stopped at his SUV, removed a clipboard and walked over to me.

  “I’m Detective Leon Torres,” He nodded up at the house. “There’s nobody there. Let’s go inside,” he said. Karl and I started towards my house and Torres put his hand up, stopping him. “You see anything?”

  “No, I didn’t know anything till Max came over to use my phone.”

  “OK, you stay outside,” Detective Torres looked at me, “Just you.”

  Karl looked disappointed but stepped back. Torres started towards my house. “You’re going to look around and see what, if anything is missing. I’m going to complete an official report. You notice anything after I leave, you come down to the station. We’ll file a supplemental. You’ll need copies of the report for your insurance company. If you see anything that was touched. Anything. Don’t touch it. Call me. I’ll dust it for prints. Do you understand?”

  I said, “Yes,” followed Torres in and started to look around. When we entered the foyer, I noticed the splintered wood near the door lock and I had to step over a long piece of broken molding. I looked to the left, into the kitchen. The cabinet doors and drawers were all open, but the dishes and kitchenware items were pretty much in place. I guessed whoever intruded was too smart to throw glassware and knives around where they could get hurt.

  From the kitchen, I stepped gingerly into the Great Room, our combination dining room-living room. The cabinets in the dining area buffet and the entertainment console were open, their contents scattered on the floor. Mariel’s Spanish books formed lopsided piles in front of the buffet cabinet in which she stored them. My Blues CDs carpeted the tile floor. I had to step carefully not to destroy them.

  However, items of value such as the TV and stereo equipment were all in their places, apparently untouched. Detective Torres stopped in the Great Room to dust some CD cases. Using my foot, I cleared a path through the debris. I didn’t want to lose any more of my music collection than I may already have. He finished checking for fingerprints, took a few steps and stopped to write something on his clipboard. I moved on to check the rest of the house.

  In the guestroom, the closet door was open. Aside from that, there was no sign of any break-in. I wasn’t too surprised, since our guest room is empty except for the furniture.

  I walked into the master bedroom. The intruders emptied the bureau and nightstand drawers onto the floor. Clothing and other personal items were scattered and the drawers lied upside down on top of their contents. My wallet and wedding ring lay on the floor near the bed. I picked them up, put on my ring and looked in my wallet. My cash and credit cards were intact and my ring is solid gold so it seemed odd that the thief left them behind. The door to the walk-in closet was open and items from the shelf covered the floor, but the clothes hanging on the rods were still in place.

  When I got to my office, it was also a mess. Once again, if it could open, the intruders opened it. If anything was inside, it was now outside, on the floor. They even cut apart the cardboard moving boxes in the closet. Carefully packed contents fell in piles preventing the door
from closing. I guessed now, I’d finally have to finish unpacking.

  I found the disarray upsetting, but what I didn’t see was more disturbing. My desktop computer, Ray’s computer and his computer disk were gone and with them, the case on which I was working.

  I was a fool. I took a case and didn’t secure the evidence. It was a rookie mistake and I made it. Actually, it was worse than a rookie mistake. I knew better than to leave evidence unsecured. I could have taken the disk to my bank and put it in my safe deposit box, but I had convinced myself I didn’t need to do it. I wasn’t guilty of naiveté. I was guilty of arrogance, thinking I could be exempt from the rules. I was pissed and I had only myself to blame.

  Since nothing else of value was missing, the computers must have been what they came to steal. What I didn’t understand was why they opened and searched my cabinets, closets and drawers if the computers were in plain sight? I could imagine only one reason. They must have also wanted something else they thought I might have.

  I was just leaving my office to tell Detective Torres what was missing when I heard the clicking of high heels on tile and voices came from the foyer. Apparently, Mariel had come home and was talking to him in a high-pitched voice. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but I heard him speaking in a calm, quiet voice. When I got to them, she ran over and hugged me tightly. “Are you all right?”

  “Sure. I was out for a run when this happened.” I turned to Torres who had turned his attention back to his clipboard. “Apparently, the only things missing are my desktop computer and my client’s notebook computer.”

  Torres stopped writing and looked at me. “Client’s computer?”

  Mariel stepped back to observe our discussion, but kept hold of my left arm. With my right hand, I opened my wallet and showed Torres my P. I. license. It was still new and I still got a kick out of flashing it. “I was examining the stolen computer for a client.”

  “What were you looking for?”

  “I’ve been hired to locate assets from Ray Kenwood’s estate.”

  “The same Ray Kenwood that we found dead in his car?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And now, somebody broke in and stole his computer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why? What was on it?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, just some bank account and investment information. I was looking for estate assets. I didn’t see anything that would explain why someone would steal it.”

  He stared at me in silence for a moment or two. He shifted his weight back onto his heels. I didn’t think he liked what I said. Without taking his eyes off me, he clicked his ballpoint pen and put it in his shirt pocket. I admired the move. If I had tried it, I probably would have missed my pocket and stabbed myself with the pen. If not that, at best, I would have written on my shirt.

  “I’m finished here,” he said. “You can pick up a copy of the report sometime tomorrow morning.”

  “What are the chances of finding the stolen computers?” I asked even though I knew I’d never see them again.

  “Not likely,” he said. “Probably, some kids’ve already hacked your online bank accounts, wiped your drives and loaded computer games. On the other hand, if you found anything on the victim’s computer, we could possibly have a clue -- Detective.” He handed me his business card and left.

  I watched him leave and then I looked at Mariel. Her eyes were wide and her mouth was open. She looked up at me and gently touched my arm. “You realize, don’t you, whoever took these things knows you’ve already seen whatever it is they don’t want anyone to see.”

  She changed her touch on my arm to a grip. ”If it was important enough for someone to steal, it may be important enough for someone to kill. The poor man who owned that notebook is already dead.”

  “Yeah, well, just because they wanted the information; it doesn’t mean they care if someone else has seen it. Without the actual disk, someone just knowing what was on it may not be a threat. It all depends on what was on it. They just took the computer. If they wanted me dead, they could have just waited for me to come home.” I countered, not convinced I was right.

  She leaned towards me, “So, what’s on the disk?” She leaned back, threw her hands up and started to walk away from me. “No, wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. It’s safer that way.”

  I followed her. “Aside from routine banking and family finances, I don’t know what’s on the disk… It looks like I better find out.”

  She stopped walking and turned to face me. She jerked her head back and tilted it to the side. “They took both computers. Isn’t it kind of late for that?”

  “No, I’ve got a copy of Ray’s entire disk on my new iPod, and if my notebook computer is still in the closet, I can use it to read the iPod until I get a new desktop.”

  She started to walk away again and then turned and walked back to me. Her hands hung down by her side. “Max, this isn’t what we planned. We were going to spend our time here relaxing and playing together. Now, this. Now, we can’t even be safe in our own home. I can’t live like this.” She turned away from me and brought her hands up to her face.

  I was afraid she was going to cry. I hated to see her cry. I can’t stand to see her cry. I walked over and put my arms around her. I was sympathetic to her being upset, but the break-in wasn’t my fault. She wasn’t happy but I was a victim of the break-in too; plus it was my stuff they took.

  I thought about pointing out she said it would be ok to take the job, but thirty seven years of marriage taught me it wouldn’t be a smart move. Instead, I said one of the only two things husbands could say at times like this. “I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t reply. She just stood there with her back to me. I put my hands on her shoulders and then said the only other thing husbands could say at times like this. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, but I’m leaving,” she pulled away, turned and looked up at me. “I’m too upset to stay here. I’m going to my sister’s. You should come with me. It’s not safe for us here. I don’t want anything to happen to you again.”

  “I can’t go. I have to stay here and work this thing out. It doesn’t seem likely the police will resolve this. To them, it’s just another burglary. Neither you nor I are going to feel safe here, until someone catches the thieves. Sometimes, in order to be safe, you have to do the thing that scares you the most. ”

  She looked at me in silence for a moment, turned away and left the room. Her packing was loud enough to be a clear signal. I knew better than to try to stop her.